Friday Five: Aunt Bert's Thanksgiving

From the RevGalBlogPals:

The Cure

Lying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk, I'm not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she's just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it's snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn't been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She's been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.
If that doesn't do it, put on a red dress.

-- Ginger Andrews (from Hurricane Sisters)



So this Friday before Thanksgiving, think about Aunt Bert and how she'll celebrate Thanksgiving! And how about YOU?


1. What is your cure for the "mulleygrubs"?
A ride in the country often does it for me.

2. Where will you be for Thanksgiving?
I will be at home with my beloved, sans guests -- for the first time in three years. Usually we invite some of our family-disconnected friends to be with us for the holiday. This year we originally thought we'd be in Brooklyn with Son #2, Almost-Daughter-in-Law and Almost Grandchild...but we're now going there for Christmas, so we declared that this Thanksgiving would be our time together.

3. What foods will be served? Which are traditional for your family?
We are, like the Baywatch producers cited on Glee the other week, going in a different direction this year: We ordered a turducken from Cajun Grocers, and will be attempting some Cajun and Creole side dishes to go with it, as well as a sweet potato/praline pie. None of this is in any way traditional for our family. One day we were watching the Food Network, and idly wondered what a turducken might taste like, and one thing led to another.

4. How do you feel about Thanksgiving as a holiday?
I loved Thanksgiving as a small child and have fallen in love with it again since I don't have to deal with the extended-family stress that would send my mother into an emotional tailspin each fall. I like the univeral nature of it; that it's grown beyond its sectarian roots so that everyone from New England Congregationalists to emigre' Senegalese cabbies can embrace it as their holiday.

5. In this season of Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for?
I am grateful for my beloved Fellow Traveler; for my new extended family, which will soon (as in any day now) include a new grandbaby; for our own cozy Thanksgiving this year; for a life away from my former place of employment (something I still thank God for every day); for my church family; for our Amish friends and neighbors and the cultural texture they bring to our community; for our ability to travel and pursue our own interests, and for my increasingly infrequent tendency to feel guilty for this or unworthy of the privilege.

BONUS: Describe Aunt Bert's Thanksgiving.
I've never been to Arkansas, but if Aunt Bert and Uncle Frank were part of my church family I suspect that they'd be showered with holiday cards right now, and that on Thanksgiving they'd respond to a knock on the door to find their neighbors offering them a complete Thanksgiving feast with extras for the weekend...and that Aunt Bert, having met them at the door with her red dress on, would invite them in for some just-baked cake.